NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #48

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 February 2025 and was expected to last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It resumed on 16 July and the last day of evidence was 29 July 2025. It will resume again on 1 to 2 September for closing submissions.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February 2025. Sandie Peggie returned to give evidence on 29 July 2025.

Access to view the second part of the hearing remotely was obtainable by sending an email request to [email protected] by 5pm on Wednesday 9 July. Detailed instructions were provided here:

drive.google.com/file/d/16-9POEZ7yHWUr6EmbfquJZO18Gv78bSm/view

The hearing is being live tweeted by x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005 and tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.ph/WSSjg.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Links to previous threads #1 to #40 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 41: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379334-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-41 24 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 42: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379820-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-42 25 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 43: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379979-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-43 25 July 2025 to 27 July 2025
Thread 44: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5380196-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-44 25 July 2025 to 28 July 2025
Thread 45: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5381518-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-45 28 July 2025 to 28 July 2025
Thread 46: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5381640-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-46 28 July 2025 to 29 July 2025
Thread 47: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5382102-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-47 29 July 2025 to 29 July 2025

Exactly. To both posts.

50 years ago people with gender dysphoria/incongruence were transsexuals. There was a BBC documentary series https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04frg16

There were also transvestites. Two distinct categories.

You cannot tell the difference which is why female spaces are so important.

DU is R2 and very much party to the Tribunal

His idea is a good one - except in the men’s?

The obvious answer to that is - let those who are without sin cast the first stone.

Do please tell us how perfect you are, in every area of your life. And how you are entitled to the protection of law, but the less-than-perfect have no rights.

If it hadn’t been racism, NHS Fife would have found something else. Because to find any evidence they had to dig and dig and finally found one page on a private chat. Now apply that level of scrutiny to your life; to your tax forms, to your driving records, to your religious beliefs.

What a shame we ended up here again.

Hey Ho.

I've missed about three threads and trying to get properly caught up.

Have I understood correctly that one of Sandie's friends shared their private messages with NHS Fife and their lawyer in order to further their case for letting the good Dr into the changing room? Does she not work there anymore so no impact on her? Why would she do that? Is this something that's only happened since the case got publicity or was this person always going to give evidence? Where does it leave Sandie now?

Yep!

It's also not even a sensible idea on its own terms, since both DU and the women clinicians might genuinely need to change at unpredictable times. It's not something you can work out a timetable for. Inevitably sooner or later someone would be hanging around outside mid shift covered in whatever.

So even assuming absolute best faith on his part, which I don't, it would be unworkable.

I think that's exactly the point where the TRAs would like us to be.

Burn the witch

Mmm, it's telling how often people trying to push the ideology immediately jump to associate it with something other than men in women's changing rooms, sports etc. They know how fucking stupid they look making the argument on its own terms, so instead they try and freeload. We saw that a few posts back with our drive by scolder trying to lump T in with LGB, when Sandie clearly has different views on both. The same with the frequent jumps to comparisons with black women, with zero understanding of the racial dynamics. It's freeloading.

Imagine if they could be prosecuted for their unkind thoughts about women they don’t approve of.

You are missing the point. It is not ethical for the NHS as a public body to put patients in that position.

This isn’t your average A&E nurse, she was publicly exposed to have these views and then didn’t back down when questioned on them in court. SP’s face has been plastered in the media; she is publicly recognisable. It is an extraordinary situation. It may very well be the case that patients or family members of patients have concerns about her treating them.

So basically the NHS has turned what was a private employee dispute, into patient safety concerns that the public may buy into. If they do, then that is a separate matter for the government to resolve. Unfortunately for SP, given her breakdown in relationship with the NHS, I imagine this is what the NHS will use to safely dismiss, her regardless of the outcome of the tribunal. It’s underhanded, shrewd move.

Yes you've pretty much got it.
A friend Lindsay went as witness for Fife. 7 years of chats and holidays together and she gave the court a message with 10 disaster jokes Sandie had shared.

It kinda back fired. Lindsay had responded with a great big laugh emoji 🤣
And she'd shared something about a patient and NAMED them. Remember this was a private chat not open FB pages or anything like that.

Stupid stuff really, why you'd do that to a friend is unbelievable.
Lindsay might be keen to be a TWAW flag waver, happy to share a changing rooms with Beth but so many women just wouldn't be.

Friends like that who needs enemies?

It seems impossible to me now that Sandie & at least some of the colleagues from the "Benidorm group " won't be reported to the NMC - the patient disclosure & non- reporting by others in the group.

I suspect Upton might be reported to the GMC, but I'm not sure anything will come of that.
I think Sandie will win against Fife but not Upton with small damages🙁. Paving the way for Upton to bring a case against Fife.

Its been the most disturbing ET on this I've followed & I've followed them all from Maya Forstater on.
Scotland is a horror show & we could have forseen the first woman out the door on this was getting shot.
Interestingly I saw a funder for a woman NHS worker who is of Muslim faith & is bringing her case on 1) religious discrim 2) philosophical belief 3) disability (PTSD) in a similar scenario to Sandie - will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

I know I shouldn't ascribe anything to what the panel might or might not do - but I was never very keen on the leeway Kemp gave to the R & R legal team - so I'm not convinced the judgement will be the excoriating condemnation we've seen in others. I suppose we shall see.

NHS Fife knew about the racism messages for a while and have been armed and ready with it. Someone involved in the case was openly talking about a ‘wait and see’ and ‘more is to come about her’ re Sandie a month or two back to NHS colleagues. Not a surprise they decided to divert attention away from their organisational incompetence with Sandie’s dreadful messages as they have nothing else to defend themselves with in terms of the direct matters of the case itself.

……..but, there’s women in prison who have done all sorts, and they are STILL entitled to single sex spaces. And we do not earn access to single sex spaces once the purity police decide we deserve them.

Didn't Naomi also say that wasn't the worst thing Lindsay had said in the messages? The whole 7 year chat transcript was in the bundle I believe, so will be interesting to see if that gets a mention in NCs final submissions or the judgment.

I imagine that’s why they wanted 24 pages of it submitted to evidence.

I just don't get why Lindsay thought it was a good idea to put them out in court.

What was in it for her?
Does she have an axe to grind with Sandie?

As her views have never impacted her work I doubt there’s anything they can do.

I disagree - you are missing the context. Firstly, if a patient had concerns about SP - presumably they would complain to another staff member or to the hospital directly. In context, SP’s colleagues do not like her. Even her closest friends at work turned against her. In context, her employer/NHS hospital do not want her to remain working there, there has been a relationship breakdown where they are at an employment tribunal. SP is also suing her union, so they likely won’t help her if new issues arise.

Therefore if a patient raises concerns about SP, they likely would be upheld with no goodwill shown to SP. The patient wouldn’t be told “tough” or “you don’t have the right to choose”. Instead the NHS would be noting down these occurrences to show that SP cannot remain working there and eventually sack her.

It seems so from other things she said.

It does seem like it was deeply personal for Lindsey - she must have known she was burning her own house down too.

If it was an AIBU? We'd all be saying - dont drip feed Lindsey, whats the back story?

I'd guess Lindsay had forgotten she'd named a patient in the chat. She clearly knew she'd liked the racist comment though, since they apparently tried to submit a version of the chat that didn't include it.

I sincerely hope NHS Fife will be immediately dealing with the GDPR data breach disclosed in the tribunal. They will have a duty to inform the patient and give details of what information was shared and to whom. The patient must be informed of their right to take legal action that could lead to criminal charges and compensation. The trust will have their own disciplinary procedures as well as the NMC. Lindsey Nicholls is in big trouble. NHSF cannot ignore this.

The trust will have their own disciplinary procedures as well as the NMC. Lindsey Nicholls is in big trouble. NHSF cannot ignore this.

We haven't seen any evidence of proper disciplinary procedures. Lindsey Nicholls will also be entitled to fair treatment.

They're going to keep the Scottish ICO quite busy aren't they!